Happy 80th birthday to Ernie Kellermann! Kellermann played defensive back for eight years in the NFL: six with the Cleveland Browns and one each with the Cincinnati Bengals and Buffalo Bills. His best season was 1968, when he snagged six interceptions and made the Pro Bowl.
Kellermann is shown here on his rookie card, a 1969 Topps. I like two things in particular about the 1969 Topps cards: the borderless colored backgrounds (in the first series, anyway) and the team logos near the bottom. I also like that many of the logos at the time–such as Pat Patriot, Cowboy Joe, and Brownie the Elf on this card–were fun instead of menacing.
Kellermann’s name is spelled with one n on this card, which I suspect is incorrect. Wikipedia spells it with one, but most football web sites (like nfl.com) and old news articles I’ve found spell it with two. Legally, it has to be one or the other, right? Maybe one of you Browns fans can say for sure?
You can see all of Ernie Kellermann’s cards–some with one n and some with two–in the Gallery.
